Sense and French Ability Read Online Free Page A

the multiplex and watch something else.”
    “No. It’s OK. Let’s do as we said.” She sighed.
    “If you’re sure,” Edward responded. “Are you alright? You seem distracted,” he added.
    “I’m fine,” she reassured him, touching his arm. “I’m starting to think forwards again.”
    “Right.” He hovered for a moment. “Shall we go?”
    “Mmm.” She slipped on her heeled shoes, reached for her jacket and Edward took it to help her into it, inexorably polite.
    Having watched ‘The Iron Lady’, Edward and Fliss emerged from the cinema into the early spring air. She was in a thoughtful mood. They usually talked about a film they had been to see, sharing views about the story and actors as they left the cinema. On this occasion, however, Fliss was quiet as Edward took her arm and linked it through his companionably. Or was it like her dad used to do when he was still alive and she was a teenager? They headed for the restaurant around the corner.
    Once seated, Edward ventured, “I’m glad we got to see that at last, even though it’s a few years old. She’s such strong actress, Meryl Streep, isn’t she?”
    “She’s been amazing in so many different roles,” Fliss responded.
    “I can see why the content had mixed reviews,” he pursued. “There was very little about Thatcher’s policy decisions or politics.”
    “It was meant to be the story of a particular time in her life, I guess. It was sympathetically done,” Fliss added, trying to act as normal. “Although some people would disagree.” She paused.
    “Edward I – ”
    “She – ,” he started at the same time.
    “After you,” she’d said.
    “No. You go first. I have a feeling there’s something you want to get out in the open.”
    “Yes,” she murmured. Looking at his smooth face with its slightly pink cheeks, she avoided his eyes. “I….. Well, I need a change. After Mum and everything.”
    “Oh!” He sighed and blew out his cheeks. “I’m wondering if this is going to be the big elbow speech. You know - the Dear John thing.” He continued in a hurry, “A holiday would do us both good. What do you fancy? Greece? Spain? What about Florida?”
    “I don’t mean a holiday,” she said, looking at her hands, which were twisting in her lap.
    Edward had looked puzzled, and then bemused, and then worried. “Well what then?”
    “I need a big change, a life change.” Then a startled look and a large smile passed across his face. She realised, with a trace of panicky horror, he might have thought she was referring to their relationship, in the opposite direction to that which he was thinking a moment before. She rushed on.
    “I need to sell the bungalow, maybe a change of work. A spell abroad might be the answer.”
    “WHAT are you talking about?”
    “I hardly know myself yet,” she answered. “I need to make a big change, for a while, until I know what I do want.”
    “I don’t pretend to fathom what on earth you mean,” said Edward with a frown. “Perhaps we’ll discuss this when you’ve had time to think it through. I can’t be chasing around the world right now. I have clients to consider.”
    “Yes, I understand,” Fliss said. “I’m sorry. Those last months with Mum were so awful and so peculiar at the same time. Edward please, I just need some space of my own for a while.”
    He reached across the table and held out his hand to her. She took it, but the symbolism of this action was misplaced. It was not his helping hand that she needed.
    *
    Back in the present, on the riverbank, Fliss gathered a few of her things together and then rang Jo’s number but frustratingly it went to the message box. She spoke, hoping Jo would ring her back soon.
    She headed back to the car and found the map again so that she might approach habitation and food. She was hungry. Sighing, she needed to do some serious thinking.
    On leaving the idyll Fliss climbed a winding, very steep road that took her on top of the world, or